The Secret Room (19 page)

I waited to feel the white lion's bite.

But he paused—something had distracted him at the last second. And suddenly I smelled ... burned fish sticks.

Fish sticks? How absurd!

Right before your death you can smell anything—wonderful smells like rose petals and fragrant moss, or maybe the first smell you remember in the world, like your mother's skin—but fish sticks?

I opened my eyes again and followed the lion's gaze.

He was looking past me toward the door to the secret room, and his expression was one of incredible astonishment.

The door with the silver handle had flown open, and Paul was standing in the doorway with a steaming frying pan in his hand.

He raised it high above his head ...

“Not so fast!” he cried and then he was next to us and smashed the heavy iron pan right into the white face with the glowing yellow eyes above me.

The lion growled. He turned to attack Paul, but Paul swung the frying pan, and a shower of charred fish sticks flew into the Nameless One's face. Paul struck with the pan again and again, in a blind rage and with a strength I never would have thought he had in him.

“Take that!” he cried. “And that! Achim belongs to us, understand? He belongs to us! He's our kid! And we're not just going to let him be taken away! Got it? Got it?”

The Nameless One winced at every blow. Gradually, his paws lost their grip.

Finally, he went back to the window, while all around us large stone blocks were breaking and falling from the walls.

The iron bed, the iron table, and the iron chair were melting in on themselves like the bars had, and the paintings fell to the floor, their frames shattered with a loud clatter.

The giant white lion reared up once more. Paul thrust the handle of the frying pan right into his face. A terrible howl caused the oil lamp to shatter and the Nameless One staggered backwards.

He broke through the crumbling wall and disappeared with the stone blocks into the night.

Paul let the frying pan fall and lifted me from the floor like a feather. Through the collapsing walls I saw the Nameless One's huge body lying in the dark grass below. He was moving. Slowly, with great effort. And at that moment I knew that he would get up again. Not now, not immediately. It would take hours, maybe days—but he would survive and continue to rule over his black-and-white palace.

Paul was trying to carry me to the door, but I reached out for the crumbling windows.

“Wait!” I cried. “Wait! Arnim! Arnim, where are you? And the yellow and green birds? They're somewhere in the palace still! And the Nut Bird with his broken wing! And the gray horse! Put me down, Paul! I have to go back! I have to find Arnim and free Spinach Luggage and Yellow Pea …”

I wriggled in his grip, twisted around, and bit Paul's hand trying to get free, but he held me as tightly as a vice. I felt tears running down my face, tears of anger and desperation.

“You can't save the whole world, Achim,” said Paul, hoarse from screaming. “Stop struggling. Just look. There ...”

He nodded toward the night outside.

And there in the bright light of the moon was a small bird with red and gold feathers and green, green feet. He was flying away from the tower, very purposefully, it seemed to me, and in his beak he was carrying a tiny silver object. I would have bet anything it was the key.

Paul silently pointed to the painting that was hanging from the last part of the wall left standing.

It hadn't fallen down and broken like the others.

For the simple reason that it hadn't been hanging there until just now.

The painting showed a sky, red at dawn. And in the sky there were three birds—a yellow one, a green one, and a red and gold one. They were flying away from the trees in the palace garden, toward a flock of other birds in the distance that you could only make out if you squinted your eyes.

But you didn't need to squint to know that they were flying south. South, far, far away from the Nameless One's palace.

“Let's go, Achim,” said Paul.

And I knew that I had been right: There would always be people who died, and other people who couldn't let them go. The Nameless One would keep using their sadness and longing to build his black-and-white palace walls forever. Maybe it just had to be like that.

But Arnim, Arnim, my brother, was free.

And Paul carried me through the door of the secret room with his strong arms, out into the hall, where Ines was yelling that she couldn't find the pan with the fish sticks anywhere.

Behind us, the tower finally collapsed.

The End

Well, that was my story about the secret room, my brother Arnim with the green, green eyes, and me—and about the Nameless One's black-and-white palace and the trees that are so beautiful it hurts.

You can choose whether or not you want to believe it.

In any case, ever since the night that Paul carried me out of it like a little kid, the door to the secret room was nowhere to be found. And no more vines with strange flowers have grown in the Ribbeks' yard.

Oh—and I almost forgot: Now my name is Achim Ribbek. It sounds a little funny, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

The last weekend before school started, Paul and Ines and I went to a little island on the coast together.

You had to take a steamboat there, and I had a new raincoat, and I didn't get sick on the ship at all.

I have to tell Karl about it, since he wants to be a sailor.

Ines said he can visit us sometime soon. Maybe during fall break. If he wants to.

On Monday I rode my bike to my new school.

Ines actually wanted to go with me, but then Tom and Anna came by and said I could go with them.

Tom's in my class. He's almost nice to me now. The incident with the water made a strong impression on him and also the fact that Ines told his mother how I put out the fire all by myself.

And we threw away the broken plate under my mattress.

“Good thing,” said Ines when I told her about it. “That was a really ugly plate.”

On the first day of school, I was standing on the playground with Tom and Anna and a few other kids, and suddenly there was an incredibly loud honking sound in the air above us. Anna pointed up and said, “Look! The geese! They're flying south!”

“I know.” I smiled. “And they're not the only ones.”